MING DYNASTY, 16TH/17TH CENTURY

The depiction of an aged gentleman relaxing in a riverscape has long been a popular motif on carved lacquer as early as the Yuan dynasty, such as a foliate oval dish similarly decorated with an old man resting on a boat in a river under the shade of willow trees, dated to the Yuan dynasty, illustrated in 2000 Years of Chinese Lacquer, Hong Kong, 1993, p. 84, pl. 37.